Evergrow claims first tax credit transfer deal for solar project: ‘transferability will unlock billions’

October 10, 2023
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Reddit
Email

Financing firm Evergrow has claimed the first completed tax credit transaction using the new transferability provisions under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in the US, for a solar PV plant in Connecticut.

The investment tax credit (ITC) covers a behind-the-meter PV project, with a capacity of under 1MW, at a commercial and industrial location in the state in New England, Evergrow CEO James Richards told PV Tech.

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Try Premium for just $1

  • Full premium access for the first month at only $1
  • Converts to an annual rate after 30 days unless cancelled
  • Cancel anytime during the trial period

Premium Benefits

  • Expert industry analysis and interviews
  • Digital access to PV Tech Power journal
  • Exclusive event discounts

Or get the full Premium subscription right away

Or continue reading this article for free

It was developed by Davis Hill Development, the seller of the ITC, while the buyer has not been revealed.

Transferability was introduced as part of the IRA in order to widen the pool of potential tax equity investors, by making it easier to buy and sell ITCs and other tax credits, such as production tax credits (PTCs). It covers solar and other clean energy technologies, although energy storage is not eligible for a PTC.

Prior to this, these credits could only be utilised through complicated tax equity investment structures.

The US Treasury released guidelines on the transferability mechanism in June this year, including information on a government portal on which all clean energy projects wishing to make their accrued tax credits transferrable will need to be registered. That is expected to be fully launched by the Internal Revenue Service later this year, Richards said.

However, the new transaction method is still complex and a significant challenge for smaller-scale projects as Richards explained.

“Transaction costs are one of the biggest challenges. These financings are expensive to do: lawyers, accountants, and many third parties all at the table. This makes it prohibitively expensive for many distributed generation (DG) projects to raise tax financing.”

“For large utility-scale projects, this is not an issue, but for our customers (DG developers), it’s a big issue. That’s why we’re investing heavily in streamlining and digitising the entire process from end-to-end so that we can make this type of financing accessible to everyone who needs it.”

Richards nonetheless said the method is much easier than the previous requirement to form tax equity investment structures, and should increase the amount of capital available for clean energy in the US.

“We think transferability will unlock billions of net new capital for clean energy because it’s much easier for investors and buyers to buy credits now compared to how it was before the IRA,” he said.

Our publisher Solar Media is hosting the 10th Solar and Storage Finance USA conference, 7-8 November 2023 at the New Yorker Hotel, New York. Topics ranging from the Inflation Reduction Act to optimising asset revenues, the financing landscape in 2023 and much more will be discussed. See the official site for more details.

16 June 2026
Napa, USA
PV Tech has been running PV ModuleTech Conferences since 2017. PV ModuleTech USA, on 16-17 June 2026, will be our fifth PV ModulelTech conference dedicated to the U.S. utility scale solar sector. The event will gather the key stakeholders from solar developers, solar asset owners and investors, PV manufacturing, policy-making and and all interested downstream channels and third-party entities. The goal is simple: to map out the PV module supply channels to the U.S. out to 2027 and beyond.

Read Next

October 24, 2025
The Saudi state-owned renewables developer Masdar has begun construction on a giant solar-plus-storage project in Abu Dhabi.
October 23, 2025
US solar manufacturer T1 Energy sold approximately 725MW of solar modules in Q3 2025, as it continues to expand US manufacturing capabilities.
October 23, 2025
Spanish power electronics specialist Ingeteam has won a contract to supply inverters and control systems for European Energy Australia's 100MW Winton North solar-plus-storage project in northeast Victoria.
October 23, 2025
Powerlink Queensland is seeking federal approval to expand its existing 330kV Bulli Creek Substation in Southern Queensland to accommodate the grid connection of Genex Power's 775MW Bulli Creek solar PV power plant.
October 23, 2025
Queensland's rooftop solar systems have exceeded 5GW of output for the first time, marking a milestone in Australia's solar expansion.
October 22, 2025
Recurrent Energy, Ampliform and Dimension Energy have announced new financing rounds this month for US solar projects.

Subscribe to Newsletter

Upcoming Events

Solar Media Events
November 25, 2025
Warsaw, Poland
Solar Media Events
December 2, 2025
Málaga, Spain
Solar Media Events
February 3, 2026
London, UK
Solar Media Events
March 10, 2026
Frankfurt, Germany
Solar Media Events
March 24, 2026
Lisbon, Portugal